God is truthful

God is truthful. Jesus described God as “the true God” because God is truthful (Jn 17:3). God neither breaks nor changes His word. Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

With God’s word, not one jot or tittle will ever pass away, and will all be fulfilled (Mt 5:18). On the first day of creation, God said, “Let there be light!” and it was so. Of all the words He had spoken thereafter, not one failed and all were fulfilled. God said to Adam, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17), and indeed Adam became separated from the life of God, and inevitably subject to eternal punishment. Thus in order to save Adam, even God had no choice but to fulfill His own words that said ‘you will surely die’, in place of Adam.

God declares righteousness by His truthfulness (Isa 45:19). When Jesus was baptized and came out of the water, God said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17). This was God’s truth without a vestige of anything false. God regards His beloved and pleasing Son as righteousness. And if anyone believes in this truth of God which has declared His righteousness, God counts that person as righteous.

God communes with the truthful

God communes with those who are truthful (Pro 3:32). As the pastor blesses the saints by saying, “The communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all”, who is it that is able to commune with God? The truthful ones. If people are praying but not receiving answers, it’s not because God hasn’t kept His promise but because they are not truthful. If we want to successfully deliver our prayers to God, we must first become truthful, sincere Christians.

As the word of God is truthful and His Son is truthful, those whom He has called are also truthful. Concerning the 144,000 sealed among Israel, Revelation 14:5 says, “And in their mouth was found no deceit, for they are without fault before the throne of God.” Whoever lies cannot join in the ranks of those who are sealed. Then Revelation 22:15 describes those who speak lies as, “But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.” Those that are not truthful cannot enter the glorious city into which only the ones who have been sealed will later go, for there cannot be lies in that city.

Our faith must be sincere. If we confessed our faith before God, it shouldn’t ever change. In the church there are two offices for which a person is ordained. One is a pastor, the other is a deacon. There is a condition to be met by anyone ordained into any of these offices, that is, they musn’t be double-tongues (1 Tim 3:8). If someone who vows, “I will devote my life as a deacon of our church” and is ordained, lets down the church by not keeping his vows, he is a double-tongued person in God’s eyes. God will deal most severely with such a person.

Keep your promise with God

Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the name of God which was revealed to us by the Son of God; Christ is His duty. In the word Christ is embedded the meaning ‘anointed and sent’. During the Old Testament time, kings, priests and prophets were anointed and thus appointed. In the same way, God’s Son was appointed with a duty when He came to the world, and He bore His duty to the point of death.

There’s a fable in Judges 9:8-15 about the trees trying to ordain a king over them. One day, the trees went out and tried to make the olive tree their king. But the olive tree said, “Should I cease giving my oil, with which they honor God and men, and go to sway over trees?” The trees went to the fig tree but the fig tree replied, “Should I cease my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to sway over trees?” The grape vine, in like manner refused the trees’ request and answered them saying, “Should I cease my new wine, which cheers both God and men, and go to sway over trees?” But the thornbush said, “If in truth you anoint me as king over you, then come and take shelter in my shade; but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon!” While the other trees clearly knew their own duties and was faithful to the end, the thornbush was different.

Each and every saint has his or her duty to carry out in the church. Though the duties may vary, not one is regarded unimportant. The sad thing is that people promise to faithfully serve the church, only to go back on their words soon after. Can such double-tongued people join in the ranks of those who have been sealed?

Our faith is not about following our own conviction but the words of Jesus Christ. The Israelites, who were in slavery in Egypt, crossed the Red Sea and came into the desert. The church life of a Christian is like the life of the Israelites in the desert (Acts 7:38). A desert is a waterless place. The way that the Israelites could survive there was because they drank the water from the rock. 1 Corinthians 10:4 says, “And all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ”. We obtain faith from the word that comes from Jesus Christ, who is the Rock. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ”.

A sincere and truthful saint observes the Lord’s Day as holy. Jesus said, “The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28). Jesus Christ is Lord of the Sabbath, as well as the Lord’s Day which is the fulfillment of the Sabbath. Saints who have received the grace of Jesus Christ ought to separate the Lord’s Day as holy and worship God on that day. Hebrews 10:23-25 says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching”, and verse 26-27 says, “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries”.

A certain person asked me, “Pastor, I was unemployed and in hardship for so long, but I found a really good job recently. But there’s one problem. I won’t be able to attend the Lord’s Day service if I start working. What should I do?” In the interest of the person, I wish I could answer, “I guess there’s not much choice. God will probably understand your difficult situation”. However if I do say that, he’ll probably make excuse saying, “The pastor told me to do that”. Making one’s choices is up to the individual person. And the consequences that follow those decisions will also be for each person to bear. Deuteronomy 30:19 says, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live”.

Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (Jn 8:44). He declared that a double-tongued person is influenced by the traits passed onto them from the Devil. God knows better than anyone else that our flesh is weak. There lies the reason He sent Christ to us. Even so, when it comes to our faith, we must faithfully keep our promises with God.

God keeps His promises. The Son of God was certain that the Father will keep His promise and thus obeyed the Father to the point of death on the cross. God the Father then kept His promise by raising His Son from the dead. Acts 2:32 says, “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.” The relationship of God the Father and His Son is that of trust. The Son who trusted the Father’s words obeyed Him unto death, and God the Father raised His Son to life just as He promised.

Jesus has invited us to be part of this relationship of the Father and the Son. Jesus prayed, “Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are” (Jn 17:11). For us to have inherited the name Jesus means we have established a father-son relationship with God. Just as a father doesn’t lie to his child, God has been sincere and truthful to us. Therefore, we also must not be double-tongued before God.

Be faithful to your duty to the end

Just as the Son of God obeyed and fulfilled His duty as Christ completely, we also need to bear our God-given duties to the end, now that we have also become God’s children. Romans 8:9 says, “Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His”. Whoever doesn’t have Christ’s DNA, that is, whoever is double-tongued and lies before God, cannot be a man of Christ.

People who don’t believe in Jesus Christ even mock God. Nevertheless, God doesn’t punish them straight away. On the earth, even idolaters are able to make a lot of money. God leaves the worldly people to do whatever they do in their flesh, because their soul has already been condemned. Thus there’s no reason to envy their prosperity, for their feet are set on slippery places (Ps 73:1-28).

People may have struggles with others while discharging their duty at church. And one’s duty may even hinder their work to make a living. Situations may arise where one considers them more important than carrying out his duties. What we need to remember in those times is that, everything we do is only possible because God is giving us breath. The moment God takes away our breath, our flesh will cease doing its work and eventually return to dust.

If anyone has been commissioned by God, his constant interest and concern should be in the church’s needs. Whilst some people are busy trying to go home as soon as the worship service is over, if one has been entrusted with a duty because God considered him to be faithful, then he must look around to see if there is anything he should do for the church even if the service has finished. And soon he will begin to notice souls who need a heartfelt word of comfort, newcomers who haven’t been at church for very long, or work that has long been neglected by others.

Christians are those who have the spirit of Christ, that is, those who have been commissioned. The hearts of those discharging their duties must be truthful. The olive tree, the fig tree, and the grapevine recognized just how precious their duties were – to cheer both God and man – and were faithful to the end. The rest of the trees tried to persuade them that they were worthy to be king, yet they treasured their duty more than become king.

God communes with those who are truthful. We must ensure that not only ourselves, but our family and children all fellowship with God. Though our flesh is weak, we must be sincere when it comes to faith. Suffering will surely follow in discharging our duties. Even so, we must carry out our God-given duties without being double-tongued before God. And God will fill such souls with His blessed joy.

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Outline and Summary translated by Sarah Nam
Interpretations by Sarah Nam

Chief Editor: Helen Nam
Korean Summary by Ki-Taek Lee